Straining Vs No Straining

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ben_sa

Now in 3V
Joined
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Location
Direk, South Australia
Hey guys. Just a question regarding the transfer of hops from the boil to fermenter.

I do extract brews around 10-12l boils with anywhere upto 100g or so of hop pellets.

In the past. Ive made my hop additions simply by throwing them in at the required times, completing my boil, then transferring to my fermenter. Hop bits and all.

Last night, i made my hop additions loosely as per normal but strained before adding to the fermenter. I was amazed how much 70g of hop pellets were remaining. Probably about the size of a tennis ball or hop 'mush'

Will this affect the brew? I think it will.clear.quicker but i am concerned about flavour. This is my house brew and the first time ive strained.

Your thoughts?
Cheers
Ben
 
Hey Ben. My understanding would be that the hops have done there work already. I have strained a couple of batches myself. I think a hop sock is more effective as then you don't have to strain. Then again I am only new to this so just my 2cents.

cheers
 
Hey guys. Just a question regarding the transfer of hops from the boil to fermenter.

I do extract brews around 10-12l boils with anywhere upto 100g or so of hop pellets.

In the past. Ive made my hop additions simply by throwing them in at the required times, completing my boil, then transferring to my fermenter. Hop bits and all.

Last night, i made my hop additions loosely as per normal but strained before adding to the fermenter. I was amazed how much 70g of hop pellets were remaining. Probably about the size of a tennis ball or hop 'mush'

Will this affect the brew? I think it will.clear.quicker but i am concerned about flavour. This is my house brew and the first time ive strained.

Your thoughts?
Cheers
Ben
i have used a hopsock for the last couple of brews i have done, i dont detect any loss of flavour so i dont imagine your straining method would be much different. there maybe some flavour loss but i am not noticing it, you can always chuck a few more grams in if you were concerned. i know many brewers dont like a hopsock and advocate having them lose in the boiler, i used them loose for over a hundred brews when i used a keggle. i now biab in a urn and it doesnt have the domed bottom like a keggle so i was getting more than normal amount of crud into the cube. thats why i started to use the hopsock to eliminate some of the crud a the bottom. i have been happy with it at this stage and will continue to use it.

cheers
matt
 
yeah no reall ill effect. but if you have flame out hops id leave them in the brew for a bit or cool the wort then strain it threw a sanitised strainer. I have heard people using 10% more hops to accommodate the hop sock. Not sure if thats needed or not
 
ah awesome. Thanks for that guys. I had a slow brew a few weeks ago and it took what felt like forever for the hop particles to drop out of suspension. That was the main reason i gave this a crack. The keg wasnt lasting long enough to clear up :-D

Ah well see how it turns out, now the waiting begins :-\
 
i cant remember who it was (i think ross or thirsty boy or someone like that) but they said that the use of a hopsock has next to no or very little affect on the hop utilisation. any negative effect would be as little as a few ibu and therefore practically unnoticeable to the human tongue. please dont take that as gospel cos i have dug that up from the dark recesses of the memory bank.

cheers
matt
 
When doing a really massively hopped brew such as a Bo Pils with maybe 120g of Saaz, and of course whenever using flowers, I find that one of these is the best hop sock you can get. Not trying to reduce Craftbrewer's profits but I had a couple of the solid plastic collared ones but gave them away at last brew day. As you can see from the photo below the material can tend to billow up, so since then I always chuck a few stainless steel items into it to weigh it down, and the boil is forced up through the bag and through the hops, then hoist it on my skyhook to drain at the end.

biab3Medium.jpg
 
Lets get back to the very basic reasons why we boil a wort, there are a list of about half a dozen good things that happen in the kettle, any basic brewing book should cover these, if you want to be a brewer you really should acquaint yourself with them. Here is a really good summary from a very reputable source:View attachment 02___The_function_of_wort_boiling1.pdf - and if you want to read more IBD Link.
Now lets say (doesnt matter if youre an extract or AG brewer) you have a nice kettle full of clear sweet water, you are about to boil. A bunch of things are going to happen, we all know at the end of the boil there will be a pile of stuff we call trub left in the bottom of the kettle.
Trub is mostly made up of hop debris, condensed protein and polyphenols. Of these the hop debris is the least of your worries the condensed high molecular weight protein and polyphenols are something that its really important to keep out of your fermenter and the brew that follows. The bad news is you cant reliably strain these out.
Add a good kettle fining as part of your boil, whirlpool properly and be prepared to leave a bit of wort behind. What you brew will taste better, be more stable, less prone to haze formation and development of peculiar off flavours.
Even if you boiled in a hop sock, you will still get Trub and you still should keep it out of your fermenter, personally I think having the hop debris mixed in with the rest of the trub makes it easier to exclude and you get more use out of your hops.
But please read the article above and think about what you are trying to achieve.
MHB
 
Let's get back to the very basic reasons why we boil a wort, there are a list of about half a dozen good things that happen in the kettle, any basic brewing book should cover these, if you want to be a brewer you really should acquaint yourself with them.

Something I'm never quite clear on - when using extracts will there be any hot break formation or has it already been taken care of when producing the extract?
 
Yes, but the amount is going to vary from extract to extract and depend on how much (expensive) energy the extractor was willing to commit to the product. Even if the extract was clean, you can and will always form more hot break material until all the protein is removed (this is not a good idea, the right proteins are very important for mouth feel and head formation/retention).
Polyphenols mainly come from the hops not the malt so they will still be in the trub and should not be transferred to the fermenter.
MHB
 
Cheers MHB. I know what ill be doing for the last few hours of my shift today :)

Thanks mate
Ben

Hahahahaha love working the weekend reading about how I am going to make more beer on my days off!
 
You should never strain. It can give you hemorrhoids.




;)
 
ben, have a look in the cheap shops for tea strainers,they are available in the shape of a ball {roughly golf ball size].they have a short chain on them which you could attatch a longer s/steel fishing trace to let it get into the boil and easier to retrieve,i have a couple and they are very handy,they hold about 25 grams or so and are easier to clean than a hop sock,just fill them and drop them into the brew when needed....cheers....spog......
Ive ordered a few hop socks already but couldnt be effed waiting so went the stocking strainer last night haha...
 
Hi Mark,
thanks for the links, interesting reading.

Would you mind commenting on the part about adding Ca to the boil to help keep reducing the pH?

"
To assist in the fall in pH extra calcium ions
in the form of calcium sulphate or calcium
chloride are added to the kettle. An alternative
method to decrease pH is through the direct
addition of acids such as phosphoric or
sulphuric acid which drop the wort pH"


I add the water salt additions to the mash water before doughing in, thinking this helps drop pH if making a light coloured beer and helps buffer for the drop from the roasted grains if doing a darker beer.
(I use the brew water nomograph on the brisbane brewers site and How To Brew to get an idea of limits)

I've read before that some add some to the mash and some to the boil but haven't really understood the science behind this.
Thinking that if I add the "right" additions to the mash water, aiming for right pH, more than 50+ ppm calcium, etc there should be no need to add anything to the boil?

thanks
Bjorn





Lets get back to the very basic reasons why we boil a wort, there are a list of about half a dozen good things that happen in the kettle, any basic brewing book should cover these, if you want to be a brewer you really should acquaint yourself with them. Here is a really good summary from a very reputable source:View attachment 46156 - and if you want to read more IBD Link.
Now lets say (doesnt matter if youre an extract or AG brewer) you have a nice kettle full of clear sweet water, you are about to boil. A bunch of things are going to happen, we all know at the end of the boil there will be a pile of stuff we call trub left in the bottom of the kettle.
Trub is mostly made up of hop debris, condensed protein and polyphenols. Of these the hop debris is the least of your worries the condensed high molecular weight protein and polyphenols are something that its really important to keep out of your fermenter and the brew that follows. The bad news is you cant reliably strain these out.
Add a good kettle fining as part of your boil, whirlpool properly and be prepared to leave a bit of wort behind. What you brew will taste better, be more stable, less prone to haze formation and development of peculiar off flavours.
Even if you boiled in a hop sock, you will still get Trub and you still should keep it out of your fermenter, personally I think having the hop debris mixed in with the rest of the trub makes it easier to exclude and you get more use out of your hops.
But please read the article above and think about what you are trying to achieve.
MHB
 
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